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Friday, April 3, 2015

Steiners' WWF run

Hey Scott,

The WWF gets a lot of deserved heat for failing to push stars who've previously established themselves outside the company. Sting is an obvious recent example, but you can go back to Goldberg or pretty much any post-Monday Night War WCW refugee.

One act that doesn't seem to get brought up a lot in this context is the Steiner Bros. But if you think about it, their 1993-94 run in the WWF was one of the more disappointing flops in WWF/E history, given expectations coming in. The Steiner Bros. were far and away the best tag team in the world when they jumped in early 93. No one else was even close. Not to mention Scott's breakout potential as a singles star.

Their first few months with the company were OK. Wins over the Beverlys and the Headshrinkers at the Rumble and Mania, respectively, weren't terrible ways to establish them as contenders. But letting Hogan and Beefcake completely overshadow the rest of the tag division before WM IX was a mistake, I think. And when it finally came time for the Steiners to win the titles from Money, Inc., it happened on a random house show (and, IIRC, they dropped and regained them in the next two cities for no reason whatsoever). Other than that, they never really definitively beat Money Inc.; the latter just split up and faded away unceremoniously (the cage match on Summerslam Spectacular and/or RAW was great but they should have saved it for the PPV). To make things worse, they then paired the Steiners up with the Heavenly Bodies, who were literally marketed as an indie team. Shortly thereafter, the Steiners unceremoniously lose the belts 3 months into their reign to the newcomer Quebecers, an old midcard comedy act teamed up with a rookie. After that, with the exception of the Survivor Series main event, they were pretty invisible (MOM got the Mania X title shot over them for Gods sake!)

I know there were issues about them working Japan. I can see that pissing Vince off, I guess. Other than that, though, was there any reason for their short run? Did they bomb at the box office?

Well they were never really put into a position to draw so it's hard to say they bombed. But certainly there was tons of friction over their refusal to give up Japanese dates and their reputation for being hard to get along with in general. And then Vince may have wanted to break up the team and push Scott and they wouldn't go along with that either. For me, you've got the greatest tag team in the world, who fucking cares if they want to work New Japan dates half the time. But Vince is Vince and if you weren't a WWF creation and don't want to do things 100% his way, you're nothing and get treated like nothing.

I think the Steiners could have been used a lot better. Let them run the tag division through 1993 and then into 1994 youve got some interesting matches for them that we didn't see. Shawn/Diesel, Razor/123, Owen/Bulldog.

There is that great Steiners vs. Hart Brothers match, that was a thing that happened. I wish Scott would have started doing Big Poppa Pump in the early 90's. Now that would have been the greatest wrestler / character of all time. I'm still a huge Scott Steiner mark to this day. Hollar if ya hear me.

Imagine them in the late 90's WWF. Steiners vs. Outlaws could have made some serious scratch. Steiners/Brothers of Destruction, Steiners/Edge & Christian/Hardys/Dudleys/APA/Too Cool. Those are some fun matches.

All I know is that I miss having Scott Steiner in wrestling. Even as diminished as he was in the ring in TNA, he still was one of the best promos in the business. And who knew he could talk like that in the early 1990s?

Loved his promo on Bubba where he told him the fat cells were going through his blood stream and collecting around his cerebral cortex, causing him to spout the nonsense he was saying about the Steiners. Something along those lines.

They wanted to break them up early but Flair never wanted Steiner to get anywhere near the title. To this day Scott thinks that Flair sandbagged him to kill his push in the early 90s and he was probably right about that. That's the start (or at least the start of the major part) of his hate for Flair.

I don't understand how anyone can say those idiot Steiners were the best tag team by far, when the legendary Quebecers, Jacques et Pierre, were around at the same time. Hell, Jacques could have beaten both Rick and Scott in a handicap match BY HIMSELF if it was contested under proper Province of Quebec rules and not that WWF garbage.

Steiners-Bodies at Summerslam is a real hidden gem, and they also had that awesome match with Bret and Owen. So their run certainly wasn't a total waste, although I agree they could have done a lot more with them.

One of the key differences between Crockett/WCW and the WWF is that in Crockettland the tag teams were seen as being on equal footing as the singles guys. Many of the top tag teams had at least one member who could wrestle for the World title and do it credibly. Tag teams frequently wrestled and beat top singles guys teaming up against them. The Roadies and Steiners specifically were seen as forces who could topple any opposition, even Luger & Sting together or Ric Flair solo.

This just wasn't done in the WWF. You didn't see the MegaPowers wrestle the Brain Busters or Hogan defend the WWF title against Ax. So it felt like the Steiners were languishing since WWF tag teams got in their box and stayed there. But they were refreshingly not fucked with--they kept their name, kept the gimmick, and kept the high-impact style to the extent that it was feasible. It could have gone better with them, but it also could have gone a lot worse.